


3:0

by Erika_K



Series: One-shot Collection [4]
Category: Magdalena Eriksson & Pernille Harder, Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22954072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erika_K/pseuds/Erika_K
Summary: I'd like to know what you think! So please leave comments or write to me on tumblr (erika---k).
Relationships: Magdalena Eriksson/Pernille Harder
Series: One-shot Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569001
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	3:0

**Linköping, Summer 2016**

Yes, adrenalin was pretty cool stuff. Everytime Magda heard the opening whistle everything changed. She never felt exhausted. She went into battles that she knew she would normally never dare to risk. She had to consciously remind herself to drink and eat during the breaks because she felt absolutely no necessity for that and she had finished matches with injuries that had started to hurt like hell just shortly after the final whistle but that she had hardly been aware of during the game itself.

After a loss the anger over her mistakes kept up the adrenaline for a while.

After a victory it was the euphoria that made it possible to celebrate for hours even after a demanding game.

When they won during an ongoing season there were just minor celebrations of course, so the adrenalin wore off at some point during showering and changing.

Now she was lying on her back in the grass on the lawn in front of their clubhouse and felt as if someone had pulled the plug out of an inflatable animal. She didn’t like this feeling just as much as the high during the game, but it came close: The tiredness and utter relaxation when the adrenaline wore off and your body suddenly realised how exhausting those 90 minutes had been.

The bright red she saw through her closed eyelids against the sun suddenly got darker. She opened her eyes. The sun was covered by Pernille who stood at her feet. Dressed in shorts and T-shirt, her hair open, still wet from the shower. The sun behind her seemed to put a halo around her head.

She smiled down at her. "Did you fall asleep already?"

"Not yet…” Magda smiled back. 

Pernille sat down in the grass beside her.

“You killed it again today!” Magda said softly.

“Yes, I did!”

Magda felt a slight tingle in her stomach at Pernille’s smug smile that came with that answer. It had been a 3:0 win. Two of the goals had been scored by Pernille.

She had been amazing already in the two previous seasons they had played together, but this year she had reached a new high. She scored in almost every game and her way to build up the game in interaction with the team seemed like the last proof that football was in fact chess on a lawn.

The main change though was that she herself seemed to have grasped by now how extraordinarily good she was.

Magda had always loved her for never putting herself above others, even when her talent had always been obvious. She was still very eager to point out that she saw her performance as part of the performance of their team, but she certainly wasn’t shy anymore about the fact that her part in that performance definitely stood out. 

She had always been confident about her playing, but lately she irradiated a confidence that made Magda more and more aware that Pernille’s humbleness might be lovable, but that she found her new found smugness additionally attractive in a very different way.

Their opponents’ defenders also knew who they needed to focus on of course, but Pernille regularly succeeded to break through their defence anyway. So it happened often enough that they resorted to more desperate matters to stop her. She got fiercely tackled and fouled on a regular basis.

Magda reached out and caressed the outside of Pernille’s calf where a large bruise had started to form.

One foul today had stopped one of her attacks that otherwise for sure would have led to a very good chance at goal. Pernille had gotten kicked off her feet really badly. The yellow card for the opponent had been more than appropriate but it didn’t undo the damage to Pernille’s leg.

Magda laid her hand over Pernille’s maltreated calf. She couldn’t even fully cover the bruise.

Because of their positions they were mostly at different ends of the field during the game. But when Magda saw Pernille go down and realised she wasn’t getting up immediately, she rushed across the field to see what was going on.

When it seemed like other teammates might have gotten injured, she worried about them as well of course, but she didn’t run over to check on them, if she wasn’t close by. She wouldn’t be able to do much anyway.

But with Pernille of course she wanted to be there. She wanted to know if she was ok as soon as possible and of course she wanted to be with her in case something had actually happened to her.

“Does it hurt?” Magda asked.

“It doesn’t feel great, exactly. But it’s ok…”

Magda raised her arm, reaching out for Pernille. "Come here…"

Pernile lay down beside her, snuggling up against her side, putting an arm around Magda’s waist.

Magda pulled her close.

“If you ever get really hurt in a move like that, I’m going to kill the one who did it!” Magda mumbled into her hair.

Pernille chuckled at her shoulder. “No, you won’t! You’ll get very angry and you’ll demand from the referee to suspend her for the next twenty seasons, but you won’t DO anything! You’re much too professional for that!”

Maybe she was right. Even high on adrenaline from an intense game, Magda might get bolder in her fights but she became rather more alert and focused than irrational and uncontrolled.

She got away with very few committed fouls or sustained injuries because she could play with a precision that let her hit the ball instead of the opponents’ ankles and put a precise header instead of colliding with someone else’s skull - mostly anyway.

She had her doubts though, that she would also be able to focus on an appropriate reaction if something actually happened to Pernille. Hopefully they’d never have to find out.

Magda looked down at Pernille’s head at her shoulder. Her face, framed by a mass of blonde hair. Her eyes closed, drifting into the post-match exhaustion as well now. Of course Pernille had sustained injuries since they were together. Minor stuff, that had been nobody's fault really, just things that happened when you played football. Magda had always known that she would be ok again, but still it had been awful to see her like that.

Magda shifted slightly, so she could put both arms around Pernille. She still hadn’t found a way to deal with this conflict.

She would do everything in her power to keep Pernille safe. Now, here, like that, wrapped in her arms, where she could protect her from whatever could happen to her: This was the place where Pernille belonged and from where, if she was honest, she never wanted to let her get away again.

And then she knew of course that out there on a football field, fighting for the ball and getting chased by the other teams’ defenders was where Pernille wanted to be. And where Magda liked to see her and where she was most proud of her. The risk that came with that was something she just had to deal with as difficult as it was.

She retreated to look at Pernille. She stroked a strand of hair from Pernille’s face and kissed her on the lips. Pernille opened her eyes and smiled at her. The next kiss turned out significantly longer.

“Well, the secret behind Linköping FC’s success is how enormously well our team plays together!” Their goalkeeper joined the group that had assembled on the lawn and continued in a pretend interview: “As you can see here, especially our defense and our attack have a really unusually close connection…” 

Magda let go of Pernille and threw her empty water bottle in the goalkeeper’s direction. As intended she missed her by almost a meter. A half-hearted protest as a matter of form. Magda didn't mind teasing like this at all. She liked it very much when someone paid regard to her relationship with Pernille even if it was this way.

She wanted everyone to know that she was not just another one of Pernille’s teammates and she found appropriate ways to make things clear - appropriately obvious or appropriately subtle depending on context and company.

Sure, her main reason for any exchange of affection in public was that she felt she wanted to be close to Pernille and acted on that, but undeniably there was a side benefit.

Pernille was hers! Not that anybody would try to challenge her on that. Not that Pernille would let anyone try to challenge her on that for that matter. There was no necessity to mark her territory other than that she wanted it and considering the smiles she received from Pernille for that she obviously liked it as well.

Magda knew that she was among the top players in Linköping herself, she had had her first call-ups with the national team and she was very proud of that.

Pernille though was Linköping’s star. She had already had an established spot in Denmark's first team when Magda was still happy to be called up to the Swedish youth teams. 

Magda didn’t feel that her achievements got disparaged by the fact that Pernille was miles ahead of her, not at all. It just gave her a nice additional tingling to know that she was Pernille Harder’s girlfriend.

She was so fucking proud of her! Yes, people, this goal scoring ball magician is my girlfriend! 

Well, it wasn’t just about the goal scoring of course. Pernille was the funniest, the kindest person she could ever think of. And besides that… Just fucking look at her!

During Magda’s altercation with their goalie, Pernille had joined one of their midfielders over a flyer of a pizza place they were about to ring. She sat leaned against a tree, her naked legs and feet stretched out in front of her, absentmindedly winding a strand of her hair around her finger, while she was studying the menu. God, she was beautiful!

It was like Pernille felt her eyes on her and looked up from the flyer. She smiled at Magda when their eyes met. Magda smiled back. She appreciated very much how content Pernille looked to have caught her staring. She knew that feeling very well. She loved to look at Pernille of course, but to regularly catch Pernille marveling at her was almost as good. It was great to know that you were able to make the other feel like that.

Someone called the pizza place for a bulk order.

While they waited for the delivery, the first informal evaluations of the game started. Some of the midfielders and attackers had gathered with Pernille and went through missed goal chances.

Magda lay beside Pernille, her head propped up on her hand. She had made peace with their goalkeeper and had joined her and another defender for a discussion of how their defence had worked in this game. They hadn’t received any goals, but some situations had been pretty close.

All in all everybody was very content with their performance. Some mistakes needed further analysis which they would do tomorrow when they rewatched the game.

The food delivery arrived.

While they were eating, their conversations slowly left the game, but the bright mood over their victory remained even after they had left that topic of conversation.

Magda had had a friend in school who had been a freeathlet. Javelin throw. She hadn't continued that career but she had been really good during their highschool years.

Magda had always felt sorry for her: Of course you could celebrate a win you accomplished alone with friends or family but what was that against celebrating with people you had really shared the win with - with your team where all of you could be collectively proud of what you had accomplished together.

She felt a tickle at her back and turned her head. Pernille behind her had stretched out her leg and had let her naked toes sneak in between Magda’s shorts and T-shirt. She cast a smile at Magda before she again focused on her conversation with her teammate.

Magda turned around again as well and continued to listen to one of their teammates’ vacation plans, while Pernille’s toes continued to crawl her lower back. 

They finished eating.

When the teammates Magda had talked to decided to go home, she joined Pernille. She put her head in Pernille’s lap and Pernille started to absentmindedly play with Magda’s hair while she continued her conversation with their teammates.

Magda just followed the conversation with half an ear. She let her mind wander instead.

They had been together for over two years now. She was still happy every morning when she woke up with Pernille beside her, but it wasn’t new anymore. By now she was startled instead, when Pernille wasn’t there when she woke up and she needed some seconds to remember that Pernille was home in Denmark or with her national team or wherever she might be.

There had also been many mornings when her first sight had been Pernille drooling on her pillow, which - biased as she admittedly was in that question - she still found very cute but certainly not exactly sexy necessarily.

They had also both had the questionable honour by now to hold the other’s hair back when the aftermath of a concussion or the stomach bug hit, which - even with all the bias in the world - was neither cute nor sexy, but it certainly brought you closer together in other ways.

As much as she had gotten used to Pernille's constant presence in her life, her feelings for her hadn’t changed. She didn’t consciously think about it every minute of her day, but there were enough moments like these when she looked at her and became aware again of just how beautiful she was and remembered how special it was what they had.

The mornings where one of them stood in front of the mirror and cursingly tried to cover-up hickeys in inappropriately visible places had become rare.

Yes, they probably had calmed down a little, but more than that they had grown up together. By now they mostly succeeded to still have one corner in their brain active enough to remember that tomorrow they needed to just be professional teammates again - without any visible traces of anything else. 

So this wasn’t necessarily about  _ less _ hickeys, this was about  _ strategically placed  _ hickeys that would disappear within the neckline of a football jersey. 

When the teammates Pernille had talked to decided to leave as well, Pernille had started to read reactions to the game on her phone; reports in the sports news as well as messages from friends and family who had watched the game at home.

Magda took her phone out as well but she didn't get any further than to answer one enthusiastic message her Dad had sent. Then her hand with her phone sank down on her chest and she proceeded to watch Pernille instead.

This was forever! That realisation had sneaked up on her recently. The insight hadn’t hit her. It hadn’t surprised her. She had just gradually become aware of it and apparently Pernille knew it as well.

They had never talked about it. There had been no proposals or important declarations. Just small indications that that was how it was.

Over breakfast one morning the question of what they might do once their active careers ended had come up. Which entailed the question of where they might settle. Denmark? Sweden? Or somewhere else? There might be other places that might be interesting to live in.

They hadn’t resolved that question that morning of course, but that it would be a decision that by then they would still have to make together wasn’t even something that needed to be mentioned.

When they were cosying up on the couch together one evening, Magda with a book and Pernille browsing on her phone, Pernille read a little news article to Magda stating that the most common Swedish names had started to become less common. Since couples could choose which name to keep and not automatically took the man's name after they got married, apparently they often opted for the less common name.

Magda had been very clear on that if the question ever arose, it was either Eriksson for both of them or they would both keep their names, because she would certainly stick to Eriksson no matter how common it might be.

None of them considered this to be a hidden proposal. There was no plan, not yet anyway, but the idea that they might get married someday wasn’t a big surprise to either of them and it was nice to lowkeyy establish that they both were on the same page about this.

When at the first really warm days a few weeks ago they had gone swimming at the lake, laying in the sun together afterwards, they had watched two children taking turns in trying to climb on an air mattress while the other one tried to prevent just that. When the kids’ parents joined in, there had been Pernille’s comment “Even if there were no other reasons, it must almost be worth it to get yourself some children just to do stuff like that again without being ridiculous…” Magda had agreed, smiling complicitly, acknowledging that she had realised what Pernille had just said. It wasn't a bold or shocking statement to make, because, yes, maybe they would have kids someday. Who knew? Why not?

This wasn’t the love-drunk enthusiasm at the beginning of a relationship when you felt that you never wanted to spend a second without eachother again - but when rationally you knew it was too early for any predictions like that.

This was different. Their relationship had reached a routine, intimacy and certainty that even Magda’s rational mind had no doubts that they would spend the rest of their lives together.

The hints that came up now and again - by coaches and journalists and by now even by Pernille herself at times - that a player like Pernille wouldn't stay with Linköpings FC forever didn't scare her. Thinking of Pernille’s skills even Magda knew that sooner or later it would be the right thing to do and she would be the last one to stand in her way.

The way her own career had gathered pace Linköping would probably not be her last stop either, but she wasn’t there yet. They would probably not take the next step in their career together, but she knew they would be able to handle that.

The current life expectancy for women in Scandinavia was almost 90. So what the hell about a few years they might spend not being together constantly. 

“Ow! What the hell?!” 

Maybe they wouldn’t have that much time left together after all! Life expectancies were a statistical item, that didn’t consider that you might live close to someone like Pernille!

...who wasn’t able to hold her phone in her hand without dropping it on her girlfriend's head!

Magda sat up, rubbing her temple. “I think we should really get home, if you’re too tired already to hold your phone properly!”

They stopped at a supermarket close to their apartment to shop for some groceries they needed for the next day. Pernille pointed at the fridge with the dairy goods.

“We need milk.”

Magda looked down at the app with their shared shopping list on her phone.

“No, we don’t…”

“Yes, we do. I almost finished the package this morning.”

Magda looked at her confused. “But why isn’t it on the list?”

“Because I didn’t put it on there.” Pernille answered lightly and opened the door of the fridge to grab a package of milk.

“But why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know… I guess, I forgot.” Pernille put the milk in the shopping basket Magda was carrying.

“But what if I had gone shopping alone and I wouldn’t have known that…”

“But you didn’t! I am here and I’m telling you we needed milk!”

“But what if I did go alone?!”

Pernille put her arms around her neck and kissed her on the lips. “Then we wouldn’t have had milk… I assure you the world would have kept turning…” She turned around and walked towards the checkout.

Magda stood and looked after her. How was she supposed to live with this for the rest of her life?! Well, she didn’t really have a choice because it came with a package, whose other parts she would never want to go without at any price, but, God, Pernille was a challenge at times!

Deep down she knew that especially this part of the package was actually really good for her. While usually they both insisted that the other was unbearably unorganised or unbearably pedantic respectively, there had been that conversation on their last vacation after they had shared a bottle of wine in the sunset.

Since they didn’t drink alcohol during the season, it didn’t take much for them to reach the point when they got very honest.

They had both admitted that at the end of the day they felt that they kept each other sane.

Magda had confessed that she often wondered if she wouldn’t develop a full blown ocd at some point, if she didn’t have to regularly endure a cluttered kitchen and well-prepared plans and lists that were completely ignored by Pernille.

And Pernille had admitted that she’d probably sink and drown in her own chaos one day if she didn’t know that she had to keep at least some kind of order to not drive Magda completely crazy.

They paid for their groceries and cycled home through the light summer evening. 

Magda stood in their courtyard waiting for Pernille who was still fiddling with her bike lock. She couldn’t open their house door, since she had her arms full with groceries she had unloaded from her rear carrier.

While Pernille entered the code in the code lock at their door, Magda leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. She would have liked to hug her as well but the groceries in her arms between them prevented that.

Pernille smiled at her when she pushed the door open. “You still have plans for tonight, don’t you?”

Magda smiled mischievously. “Well, they kind of involve you… so it depends if they match with yours…”

Pernille smiled back. “Yeah, I assume they actually do…”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to know what you think! So please leave comments or write to me on tumblr (erika---k).


End file.
